Like Grains of Sand

Ryosuke Hashiguchi's 1995 Japanese film follows a triangle in a high school. Shuji is in love with his friend Hiroyuki; Hiroyuki is drawn to Kasane, newly arrived in the class. Kasane's own past enters the story, and the three live with what they cannot say to each other. The film is an early and measured example of Japanese cinema treating homosexual desire in the context of adolescence. Hashiguchi does not turn it into a coming-out story; the matter is not acceptance but feeling unreturned. The camera keeps its distance and there is almost no music. That it carries a role from Ayumi Hamasaki's acting period adds a further curiosity. The pace is slow. Who it's for: viewers interested in Japanese independent cinema and queer coming-of-age stories. Who it's not for: anyone wanting incident, or avoiding implications of suicide and sexual violence.